‘I do, yes,’ I say, reaching out to take my son’s hand in mine. ‘Whatever you and Jodie have decided – whatever comes next – none of it will change how I feel about you, and I will do everything I can to support you both. I’m sure Paul will come round.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ he says, and lays his head back on my shoulder, prompting Daniel to spring up to try and nuzzle in between us. How can a dog be ten years old and have no clue about respecting people’s personal space? Then again, at least he doesn’t try and sniff our bums in the way he does with every single dog he encounters in the park.
‘What are you working on, anyway?’ Adam asks, clocking the laptop folded shut on my knee and the notebook filled with my messy handwriting on the sofa. ‘More listicles? Ten Ways to Beat the January Blues by Being More Productive in Work?’ He smirks. He and his brother have a long and illustrious history of teasing me about my work writing copy for business-to-business publications – and most notably writing lists which always nod towards staff working harder for less.
‘Actually, no. I’m not. Well, I am… but not like before.’
‘Do you care to elaborate, Mother, or am I supposed to guess?’ he says.
For some strange reason, I feel myself start to blush. This is ridiculous. I’m not doing anything dodgy. I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m simply writing a different kind of a list in a bid to score a new opportunity. One that means a whole lot to me, as it happens.
‘I’m diversifying,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve a meeting with an old school friend to talk about maybe writing some stuff for the magazine she edits. You know thatNorthern People? I pitched her some ideas about being a woman of a certain age and she liked them.’ My face is blazing as I speak and I know it’s ridiculous. I’m a forty-six-year-old woman and have been writing for B2B publications for years. It’s not been glamorous but it has paid the bills and kept the boys in shoes. For a while it had been the perfect way to combine earning a living with raising the boys – allowing me to work from home long before it was fashionable. That became an absolute lifesaver when my marriage broke down and the boys needed me even more. It had been enough – or so I had convinced myself – until I uncovered a letter written by sixteen-year-old me to the me who exists now outlining her hopes and dreams for where we might be at this stage of life.
Sixteen-year-old me dreamed of writing forCosmo, orMarie Claire.Northern Peoplemight not be in those big leagues but it’s a whole lot closer than any number of interchangeable business-focused titles.
‘Mum!’ Adam says with such enthusiasm that Daniel launches into a volley of enthusiastic barking, which unfortunately starts right in my ear, temporarily deafening me.
I can see that Adam is still talking but I’m buggered if I can make out what it is he is saying, while Daniel is going full Spaniel with excitement.
‘Daniel!’ I scold, but only half-heartedly because it’s nice still to have someone be excited for me. With his tail still wagging furiously, he nuzzles into my neck and once I’ve firmly discouraged him from licking my face, he settles contentedly again. This allows Adam to finally be heard.
‘I’m really proud of you, Mum,’ he says. ‘That’s really exciting. You’ll smash it. So what kind of things will you be writing?’
I think about just how honest I should be with him. I’m aware, of course, that if I’m published there will be no hiding what I’ve written from him, but I’m not sure he’s really ready enough to hear my full pitch right now. I have a long list of ideas about the good, bad and ugly of menopause. How to find your sexual groove in your forties – although given the direction my relationship with Conal has taken, I might have to scrap that particular one. I’ll replace it with how to handle online dating as a woman old enough to know better.
I’m also pitching a column on how to survive your children abandoning you to go to uni, and breaking your heart. That kind of thing. Not the kind of thing you want to discuss with your nineteen-year-old and certainly not the kind of thing your nineteen-year-old wants to discuss with you.
‘Ach, well, life, the universe and everything,’ I tell him. ‘I hope to keep it relatively light. But honest, you know. About what it’s really like to be in your forties, and going through menopause and maybe dating and…’
I watch as the colour starts to drain from his face, which of course causes the colour to drain from my face. Does he not want me taking such an honest approach? Would he be embarrassed by his mother writing about her menopause, or even S-E-X in a publication? Is he already regretting his bout of enthusiasm and excitement, just moments earlier? Should I be taking his feelings into consideration or steaming ahead with my life? Sixteen-year-old Becki (with an i) hadn’t thought this particular scenario through. She’d wanted her older self to have children, of course, but she never factored in any potential embarrassment they might feel if she one day started writing about her saggy boobs, or occasional need for a little help from Mrs Tena. Or if, God forbid, she even considered writing about her desire to reignite her waning libido with a new man.
My momentary euphoria disappears as quickly as it arrived. ‘You think I’ll make a complete eejit of myself, don’t you?’
‘No!’ he protests. ‘Not at all. I don’t think you’ll make an eejit of yourself. I suppose I’m a bit nervous about just how honest you’ll be. There are things a son doesn’t need to know…’ He trails off and I’m pretty sure we’re both sharing the same thought. That there are things a mother doesn’t really want to think about either. Like her son impregnating his girlfriend – but here we are.
I see a small twitch at the corner of his mouth, which thankfully heralds the arrival of a smile. ‘Okay. I get that I’ve the ownership of some pretty special double standards here, but still…’
My heart swells with affection for my boy.
‘Don’t worry,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll be honest. But not too honest. That’s, of course, if I get the gig. There’s no guarantees. I have to impress Grace… that’s the editor. It’s years since I’ve seen her and yeah, we sort of knew each other at school, but we weren’t close. It’s not like she owes me a favour or anything. But even if she did, I wouldn’t want the gig because she feels she owes me. I want it because I’m good.’
God love Adam for having the patience to listen to me. Saul’s mind would’ve wandered somewhere completely different by now and he’d reply to my concerns with a random observation about a TV programme or football team. Adam, on the other hand, understands. He gets me because we have the same personality – the same need to be sensible and the same fear of never being good enough. The mammy-guilt rushes in – my mind immediately thinking of the Philip Larkin poem ‘This Be the Verse’ and its premise that parents will always pass their shitty baggage on to their children. Whether they want to or not. Larkin puts it much more eloquently, of course.
‘Youaregood, Mum,’ Adam says and I feel fuzzy inside. When Adam says it, I know he means it. If it was Saul, I’d be waiting for the inevitable sneaky request for twenty quid to follow.
‘And you’re good too, son,’ I tell him – aware that I always thought it was just old women who use ‘son’ instead of their actual son’s name. At least, I console myself, I have not reached the stage where I use ‘son’ when speaking to all young men below the age of thirty. That really will mark the beginning of the end.
‘I hope so,’ he replies and squeezes my hand a little tighter, his head resting a little heavier on my shoulder. I drop a kiss onto his wavy brown locks, thankful there is still a trace of the curls there that I so loved when he was little.
I wish things were still as simple as they were then and all it would take would be aFireman Sammagazine and a Milky Way to make him feel better.
6
MY LITTLE PONY
Niamh
Niamh is fighting a headache that is absolutely not being helped by the Taylor Swift songs blaring from Fiadh’s room. Or the exceptionally loud running commentary Ethan and Cal seem to be providing at the top of their lungs as they game together in the swamp of despair that is their bedroom.
